Brandon Hatmaker is an American pastor, author and television personality who co-founded Austin New Church with his then wife, bestselling author Jen Hatmaker, and later became a national name through HGTV and a highly public 2020 divorce. He built a career around ministry, writing and nonprofit work long before most people knew his name, and he has spent the past few years redefining that career after his marriage ended.
Most people come across his name through Jen Hatmaker’s books, her memoir, or their old HGTV show, then start asking what happened to him and where he stands now. The short answer is that he stepped back from public church leadership, stayed active in the nonprofit he founded, and only broke his public silence about the divorce in 2025, after his ex-wife published her own account of it.
| Quick Fact | Details |
|---|---|
| Profession | Pastor, author, television personality, nonprofit leader |
| Known For | Austin New Church, HGTV’s Your Big Family Renovation, marriage to Jen Hatmaker |
| Born | 1972, Colorado |
| Education | Oklahoma Baptist University |
| Spouse | Jen Hatmaker (married 1993, divorced 2020); remarried since |
| Children | Five, including two adopted from Ethiopia |
Early Life and Education
Hatmaker has said in interviews that he grew up in Colorado before settling in Texas as an adult. Legit.ng reports that his father worked as a pastor and ran a family church, which put Hatmaker in church services from an early age.
He studied at Oklahoma Baptist University, where multiple biography profiles say he earned his undergraduate degree. He met Jen, his future wife, while they were both in college, and the two married in 1993, according to Wikipedia’s summary of Jen Hatmaker’s biography.
Building Austin New Church
Hatmaker spent more than two decades working in local church ministry, according to a Goodreads author interview. That path led him and Jen to found Austin New Church in Austin, Texas, in 2008.
The church focused on serving under-resourced communities rather than running a typical Sunday service model. Hatmaker served as lead pastor, and the church grew into a network of missional communities that worked alongside local nonprofits, according to his profile on Exponential.org, a church-planting organization where he has served as a ministry coach.
A Different Kind of Church Model
Rather than measuring the church by attendance, Hatmaker built Austin New Church around what its members did during the week. Congregants were treated as partners in projects such as neighborhood outreach and support for families going through adoption, and the church leaned on a network of nonprofits instead of a single central campus. He wrote about this approach directly in “A Mile Wide,” describing how he pushed his own congregation to move past a comfortable, surface-level version of faith and into more hands-on service.
Author and Founder of the Legacy Collective
Hatmaker built a writing career alongside his ministry work. He wrote “Barefoot Church: Serving the Least in a Consumer Culture” in 2011 and “A Mile Wide: Trading a Shallow Religion for a Deeper Faith” in 2016, both published by Thomas Nelson and still sold through major booksellers.
He is also the founder and Managing Partner of The Legacy Collective, a giving community built to fund solutions to social problems around the world. Jen Hatmaker’s Wikipedia page notes that the Legacy Collective has been active in Texas hurricane recovery efforts, and Hatmaker has continued to lead the organization well after his ministry work slowed down.
From the Pulpit to Prime Time: “Your Big Family Renovation”
Hatmaker’s most visible mainstream moment came through television. After Jen’s blog post about end-of-year parenting burnout went viral and led to a segment on “The Today Show,” HGTV approached the family about a series, according to Wikipedia’s entry on the show.
The result was “Your Big Family Renovation” (also marketed as “My Big Family Renovation”), which ran for two seasons and nine episodes on HGTV and the DIY Network between 2014 and 2015. The show followed Brandon, Jen and their five children as they restored a 1908 farmhouse in Buda, Texas, just south of Austin.
In an interview with Austin Family Magazine, the couple described moving into the house while it was still being rebuilt, without heat, a kitchen or electricity, during one of the coldest winters the area had seen. Hatmaker later appeared in guest spots on other HGTV programs, including “Brother vs. Brother” and “Tiny House Arrest.”
Marriage and Family With Jen Hatmaker
Brandon and Jen Hatmaker married in 1993 and spent 27 years together before their divorce. In the same Austin Family Magazine interview, Brandon described their family: their first child, Gavin, followed by Sydney and Caleb, then two more children, Ben and Remy, adopted from Ethiopia.
For years, the Hatmakers built a shared public platform around ministry, parenting and adoption advocacy, touring together for speaking engagements while raising five children and running Austin New Church side by side.
The 2020 Divorce
The marriage ended after Jen discovered that Brandon had been sending a late-night voice message to another woman. She later told The New York Times, in comments reported by ChurchLeaders, that alcohol was involved that night and that Brandon moved out of their home the following day.
The couple separated in August 2020, and their divorce was finalized within months. Jen has said publicly that much of the blame fell on her in early press coverage, telling Time magazine, “It was all my fault, according to the internet.” Brandon stayed largely silent about the split for years afterward, avoiding interviews and public statements about what happened.
The divorce also ended their shared public roles. Austin New Church and the HGTV show had both been built around them as a couple, so the split closed out two of the more visible chapters of Brandon’s career at the same time it ended the marriage.
Responding to Jen Hatmaker’s 2025 Memoir, “Awake”
Jen Hatmaker released her memoir “Awake” on September 23, 2025. The book opens with the same voice-memo scene that ended the marriage, and it prompted Brandon to break his silence for the first time.
In a Substack post published September 22, 2025, Brandon called it the lowest point of his life and gave his own account of the marriage’s final years. He wrote that he had sought counseling for three years before the affair and said he had felt invisible in his marriage long before it ended. He also described a period of real doubt in his faith, explaining that he had not lost belief in God so much as lost his sense that God was present with him during that season.
Brandon rejected the idea that he had been cold or unwilling to fight for the marriage, and he shared that he had once texted Jen to ask whether reconciliation was possible. According to ChurchLeaders, when she declined, he considered that the end of any path back together. Three days later, in a follow-up post, he said he had said what needed to be said and considered the subject closed going forward.
Is Brandon Hatmaker Still a Pastor?
No. ChurchLeaders reported that Hatmaker no longer holds a position as a church leader, a detail that lines up with several other profiles noting he has not held a pastoral role in the years since the divorce. Legit.ng similarly describes him as a former pastor of Austin New Church who has shifted his public work toward the Legacy Collective instead.
That shift matters for anyone trying to understand his current career. Hatmaker spent more than two decades in local church ministry, but the title most accurately attached to him today is author and nonprofit leader, not pastor.
His Influence on the Missional Church Movement
Hatmaker’s clearest legacy sits with the missional church model he helped popularize through Austin New Church and his writing. Books like “Barefoot Church” pushed other church leaders to rethink Sunday-only ministry and build congregations around ongoing service work, an idea that influenced conversations among church planters well beyond his own church, based on his continued role as a coach for Exponential.org.
That influence looks different from a typical celebrity pastor’s legacy. Hatmaker never led a megachurch or built a national platform the way some of his peers did. His mark came from a smaller, service-focused model that other leaders studied and adapted, and from a willingness, once he finally spoke publicly in 2025, to describe failure and depression in plain terms rather than a polished redemption story.
Life Now: Remarriage and Ongoing Work
Brandon Hatmaker has remarried since his divorce from Jen, a detail he referenced directly in his 2025 Substack posts and one that ChurchLeaders confirmed in its coverage of his response to “Awake.” Several entertainment biography sites report that his current wife is named Tina and that the two married around 2023, though that detail has not been confirmed by a major outlet and should be treated as reported rather than officially verified.
Brandon has said he still considers himself a person of faith but struggles to find a comfortable place inside organized church life, given his last name and history. In his September 2025 Substack post, he pushed back on the idea that his experience means the church itself has failed, writing that there are “so many true and genuine church leaders out there,” even as he keeps working through where he personally fits.
He continues to lead The Legacy Collective as Managing Partner, and he remains based in the Austin, Texas area, where he and Jen built their family and their church. Public updates from him remain rare outside of the two 2025 Substack posts, and he has said he considers the topic of the divorce closed going forward.
Brandon Hatmaker’s Net Worth
No verified net worth figure for Brandon Hatmaker has been published by a primary or financial source. Unofficial estimates vary widely: the site Biographical Mask, cited by both Briefly.co.za and Kemi Filani, puts his net worth near five million dollars, while other unofficial profiles list figures closer to the low six figures. Given how far apart these numbers are and the private nature of his finances since the divorce, neither figure should be treated as confirmed.
What is documented is the source of his income over the years: book royalties from “Barefoot Church” and “A Mile Wide,” speaking engagements, his television appearances, and his ongoing role at The Legacy Collective.